Marian Hosking
Silversmith
Rye, Australia
Recommended by WCC Australia
An imprint of nature in silver
- Marian champions local flora "without hierarchy"
- She uses silver as a means to shift light and celebrate other natural materials
- She was recognised as an Australian Living Treasure in 2007
Marian Hosking is a distinguished silversmith and jewellery artist whose work celebrates the subtleties of Australian nature. Marian gained her skills at RMIT School of Art and the Fachhochschule für Gestaltung in Pforzheim. With a jeweller's eye, she focuses on the minutiae of flora. Silver helps her represent the shimmering nature of light on plants as well as highlighting their preciousness. She can spend up to two weeks just drilling thousands of tiny holes for one work. For her Living Treasures national touring exhibition in 2007, Marian made a silver ring big enough to fit the circumference of one of the few remaining giant trees in Australia, in honour of its life. Recently she has started to incorporate indigenous wood species into her sculptural and jewellery pieces, creating a mutually-celebrating dialogue between silver and wood.
INTERVIEW
At the time when I started, gold was associated with the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Meanwhile there were beautiful works in silver coming from Scandinavia. I did not want the price of the metal to dictate the form. And I loved the way silver can shift light.
I share the values of the conservation movement. In the 1980s, I made small badges to promote endangered species. They then evolved into brooches. I am particularly drawn to coastal heathland, sandstone and desert regions. I observe, select and translate into silver to highlight the diversity of the Australian bush.
I have travelled to India a number of times. I find the students there particularly enthusiastic and knowledgeable. I was particularly struck by the beauty of Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi. I was inspired to use a pattern from the brickwork in the first vessels I made to put candles in.
Follow your passion, be true to yourself and work consistently. I almost stopped making when we suffered COVID-19, but life goes on.
